Looking for You!

I woke one day to hear them say

That they’d atom bombed Iran,

There was no more threat from them, they said,

There was no more Teheran,

They said all their enrichment plants

Would be dead for a thousand years,

‘It’s a win for the common man,’ they said

In some logic, so perverse!

 

But the Nuclear powers got itchy then

And took out Pakistan,

‘There’ll be no more al-Qaeda,

There’ll be no more Taliban!’

Then North Korea shot their bolt

And dropped a bomb on Seoul,

In revenge for the war of ‘50

It was becoming a free for all!

 

Then Beijing took out Tokyo

For the Daiyou Islands spat,

‘Remember the Rape of old Nanjing?

There’ll be no more of that!’

While Hamas firing rockets made

Israelis cross the line,

The next we heard was a nuclear bomb

Had wiped out Palestine.

 

The Saudi’s wiped out Cairo

To get rid of the Brotherhood,

And Moscow, taking a punt

Destroyed Berlin, for well and good.

New York was gone in a flash of light

And London, just the same,

While Moscow’s simply a glowing night

On a radioactive plain.

 

Sydney went, and Melbourne too,

Though we don’t know how or why,

We thought that we’d have been safe down here

‘Til we looked up at the sky,

New Zealand sank beneath the sea

With just Rotorua left,

Built up to a huge volcano

Spewing lava along its crest.

 

So when my cell phone rang, I thought

‘Is there anybody there?’

I hadn’t seen anyone round for days

Since the world had gone quite spare!

A message popped up on the screen

‘I love you, John, it’s me!’

But I didn’t know who the caller was,

It was signed with the letter - ‘B’.

 

I tried to call the number back

But I only got a hum,

There wasn’t even a ring tone,

Wasn’t a service I could phone,

I put it out of my mind and thought:

‘The thing is to survive,

I need to head for the bush if I’m

Determined to stay alive.’

 

The following day it rang again

And the message there was clear:

‘I need you John, are you going to come

And rescue me, my dear?’

I scratched my head in bemusement

But no thoughts would come to me,

I didn’t know anyone in the world

That signed with the letter ‘B’.

 

I squatted in an empty house

In the village of Gulnare,

Everyone else had gone away

There were empty houses spare,

The village shop supplied my needs

So I thought that I would bide,

To see if a radioactive cloud

Would blanket the countryside.

 

The cell rang every other day

It fairly drove me spare,

There wasn’t a way to answer it

To tell her that I was there,

And I hoped she’d finally let me know

Just where she was phoning from,

But all she’d said, and it rang in my head

Was ‘I love you, love you, John!’

 

Perhaps she was the love of my life

That I’d known, and cast aside,

Always in search of the perfect girl

When I wanted a perfect bride,

She seemed so lonely, phoning me

From the great wide world out there,

How could I tell her that I was stuck

In the village of Gulnare?

 

The final message arrived before

My batteries died, went flat,

I couldn’t recharge, the lines were down

So I thought that that was that!

My heart sank into my boots, she’d said

Where she was, and that so far,

For ‘B’ was stuck in a tiny town

In the depths of Iowa!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Sheila Kline]

A gripping tale of the cards tumbling down, one at a time until the deck was left with one more card to deal, and with that lone card left good came with the draw. You bring together two souls who are abandoned worlds apart, but are able to realize good is still alive midst the tragedies of life! We put aside the horrors, and the hate, and the pain and realize love conquers all!
Another wonderful read my friend!!

[A Soap Mess Stories]

A sad endinu, was hoping he would finally know who it was.

[Siren]

What struck me most about this piece was the decline of reasoning behind war. That, perhaps, is one of the greatest dangers to fear in our society: when we stop reasoning things out for ourselves. In some ways, I think this point has already been reached. In others, perhaps there is still time. Truth is spoken in this write. Great work!

[Tate Morgan]

Well now that's an interesting tale.That sounds like something from an Arthur C Clarke movie. Sad to say, that's probably what's going to happen to us in the end. Seems like diplomacy is always conducted at the end of a big stick isnt it?One things for sure about mankind given enough time, we will destroy ourselves. There's no doubt in my mind about that. And so mankind will have the chance to start all over again or in this case, perhaps John and B .

[Lena M. P.]

Very powerful messages there. Each generation has their "if we could only rid the world of...it would be a better place." But that is not true and is only a sign of the times. My opinion of that race now may not be accurate or true 5 years from now. Yet here we sit with weapons of destruction at our whim to blow the world away at a single slight. Ironic that the one and only he wanted to save wasn't even in his neck of the world.

[quinfinn]

you know, not only is this a write of epic proportions and cleverly penned to perfection, but i couldn't get that old movie with gregory peck and ava gardner..."on the beach" out of my head while reading and of course, when i read the stanza about down under, "waltzing matilda" popped right in there. funny, epic movie, epic poem...great minds do think alike. outstanding write, David.

[Ambereen]

Love and war together make for an intense , good write ! Beautiful

[spiritwind]

Too real
Reminded me of the fear I felt when watching On The Beach
You took it so well from the political to the personal
But we would, wouldn't we?
Once everything was dying, what did it really matter who did what to whom
All that would matter was the utter waste of love

[Valentine]

Fantastic and yet you still used all of the danger spots in the world today and turned it into a funny ending poem..I sometimes think of these things and worry about Isreal as my mothers people were Jewish..I am a Christian Jew..Love Kathie

[Enid Blake]

Ha Ha! Love will find a way...or possibly not in this case lol